Design, Manufacturing and Tests of an Implantable Centrifugal Blood Pump

An implantable centrifugal blood pump was developed for long-term ventricular assistance in cardiac patients. In vitro tests were performed, as wear evaluation, performance tests and hemolysis tests in human blood. Numerical computational simulations were performed during design process in order to predict its best geometry. Wear evaluations helped to select the best materials for double pivot bearing system proposed to achieve longer durability. Performance tests pointed the best impeller geometry. The implantable centrifugal blood pump was compared with other blood pumps founded in literature. The proposed implantable centrifugal blood pump showed the best performance. But, its results showed a strong descendant curve in high flow. Other prototype was manufactured with a different inlet port angle to overcome this problem. The normalized index of hemolysis (NIH) measured 0.0054 mg/100L that can be considered excellent since it is close to the minimum found in literature (between 0.004 g/ 100L e 0.02 g/ 100L). The authors' expectation is that this pump will become a promising Technological Innovation for Sustainability.